According to some sources, the Kona Electric will land in the United States in the first half of 2019, carrying a base price of just under $40,000. It will be offered with only one battery option in the U.S., the larger 64-kWh one.

This car is one of the real “ICE breakers”, open the way to nice, affordable and long rang EV’s.
I see it partly as an Model 3 competitor, but will push even more pressure on Leaf and Zoe. Ampera-E is great, but since the PSA take-over, prices in EU start close to 55kUSD…

How can this have 470km WLTP with only 64kW battery? In comparison a Model S 100D should have 700+km WLTP.
If they put this technology in a more drag efficient IONIQ, it would have easily 500+km/310miles WLTP. Could this be a new benchmark in battery efficiency?

There’s a world outside Trumpistan. The 64.2 kWh version with 150 kW is expected to be just under $40k.

The Bolt starts at $37.5k, but nobody should fail to add a DCFC port, bringing it to a minimum of $38,250.

KONA won’t be the cheapest long-range EV, but it’s definitely in that ballpark. We can call it “relatively affordable” – for what you get – if you prefer. $40k is a lot of money.

Outside the US though there’s also the 40 kWh version with less power. Don’t know what it’ll cost, but I think the differences in range and performance probably warrant about $10k difference. Price in Europe before taxes (VAT is included in advertised prices in Europe, and it’s usually very significant, from 20% and up in most countries) should be about equivalent to $30k then.

I’m seriously considering it, but awaiting pricing in Norway, and delivery estimates. Very happy I reserved, although 5500 beat me to it. It’s also funny I reserved it about a year after I paid 10,000 NOK to reserve a Model 3, and Hyundai still beat Tesla to my market by about a year (possibly more; no idea how long it may be before the base Model 3 arrives, if it does at all).

Pretty amazing how much quicker the bigger battery version is. Wonder if HP is that limited by battery size, or is it intentional marketing. If physically limited, it is pretty amazing how quick the i3 is (6 second 0-60) times compared to other 30kWh battery equipped EVs.I’m sure you are limited by only so much power from the allowable discharge rate with smaller batteries.

The i3 is much lighter than the Kona due to its CFRP/aluminum/thermoplastic construction, so that helps immensely with its acceleration rate. Even the original 22 kWh battery pack is capable of producing 125 kW of power for 30 seconds or so with 75 kW of steady state output.

In principle electric motors do not have a maximum power. In practice they are thermally limited – if you kept forcing ever more current through it would simply melt.

In other words, given an unlimited power source pretty much any electric motor could produce 1 MW for a microsecond. The transmission might break, including the rotor itself, but that would happen after the power pulse as it takes more than a microsecond for a mechanical break to propagate itself!

So what is actually meant by motor power ratings? That’s anyone’s guess. It doesn’t mean arbitrarily sustained output; Tesla for instance reduces available power after repeated drag races to protect against overheating (of the battery, but the motor would also need it at some point if the battery didn’t). But it equally doesn’t mean for one second. There’s no standard, so it didn’t really mean anything in particular.

I suspect from the identical torque that it is the same motor in both versions, and it is indeed power constrained in the 40 kWh car by the battery pack. After all, delivering 150 kW from that pack is nearly 4C discharge, which seems too high for NCM611. With the 60 kWh pack it’s a more reasonable 2.5C.

I concur. But I do wonder when they’ll start to do real business with their EVs. Production guidance for KONA in 2018 is just 18,600 combined for BEV and PHEV! There’s some 15,000 reservations for the BEV in Norway alone, and the potential ought to be there to shift 50,000 of these babies just in the EU this year.

Unfortunately I think the manufacturers are still struggling to make a profit on their EVs and therefore still preparing for the tipping point. It’s a huge and complex market where VAG, VWs mother company, as the largest player sells just over 10% of the market across for major brands (VW, Audi, Skoda and Seat) and hundreds of models. I believe they roll out EVs now, at a loss, to learn as much as possible and have at least one or two iterations before the mainstream kicks in, perhaps as soon as 2022. At least this makes sense of the long waiting lists and low volume for so many EVs.

The LEAF by the way appears to be an exception. Nissan claims it makes a profit on it, and they seem to want to sell as many as they can, not just talk about it as much as they can. And it’s the only EV manufactured on three continents (in four factories if we include the Venuce, it’s Chinese joint-venture). Of course this just means people can buy one, not that they should! But with the Ioniq, and soon the Kona and also Kia Niro, you can’t whether you should or not…

@gasbag, what do you mean with midrange? 50kW battery? Why something in between, prices will not go down, alot is marketing and product positioning. Its already great they offer this in two flavours, something I miss on Leaf and Bolt. Lets wait for prices first

FS Rouge concept is what they need to make. hopefully it’s in the Genesis brand and all electric with 3 or 4 motors and $70K with 400 mile range! Kno is weird looking with the dark plastic around the wheel wells. It reminder me of GM’s Pontiac Aztek ugliest car ever made.

From previous articles…
– Estimated Price in US $40K for 64 kwh base
– Estimated Availability is late 2019

To Inside EV staff, when you post these announcements, please reiterate the estimated US availability and price based on latest available information. Lot of people are getting this news now and if you want people to get enthusiastic about buying an EV, you need to post cost and when it’ll available.

Half your readership is outside the US. Why not treat the other half as well? I don’t know how much of that is European, but if guess most. It goes on sale this summer, price is to be determined shortly after Geneva.

I for will seriously consider this if Tesla Model 3 gets delayed further. My latest estimate for Model 3 is early 2019 and by then $7500 Fed tax credit will be long gone. At this time I am seriously doubting even the early 2019 estimate.

So how does this compare to the Bolt in terms of size and range? Is the range listed using the same testing procedures as the Bolt’s 238 mile range, and is it substantially larger? If yes, then this is an exciting car.

That depends where you live and what your charging options are. For tripping you have the CHAdeMO or CCS DC so get your fast 30min charging that way. If you have a home then you show charge when you are there for hours if needed. If you don’t have a home then you need to make sure you can actually charge it somewhere.
I own an EV and to be honest even the show 2.4kW EVSE it came with is fine for overnight charging, if it had 7.2kW I’d be really happy (and I did wire my home for this eventuality, or for 2x 3.3kw at the same time). Unless you are driving well above the daily average, even small 3.3kW EVSE will recharge you in less than 3hrs (based on my own experience).
So really, get an EV then see how it goes, most likely you don’t need 11kW or 22kw or anything higher than 3.3kW for at home charging that typically takes hours while you are sleeping. And DC charging is for that very fast situation, typically when you are travelling.

Agree very strongly. In fact, not only is this how my wife and I approached charging when we bought our EV in 2013, but it’s exactly what I tell other people to do: See how well you can live with slow, overnight charging, i.e. 110v. If you need a 220v EVSE, you can add the wiring and a different EVSE (if needed) later.

We never had to add any equipment, and it’s worked perfectly for us. I suspect that slow charging has contributed to the fact that my car is still showing all bars.

I’ll be interesting to compare the 2019 Leaf with the long range Kona, because if the leaks are real the Leaf will be cheaper, will have a more powerful motor, nearly the same range for a longer/heavier/roomier car, quicker (6.5 secs or less) and a more powerful AC onboard charger (11kW or 22kW).